


Stop It With The Memory Wipes Already

by salanaland



Series: Skywalker Family Feels [14]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Droid rights, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Gen, Protective Anakin Skywalker, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25146802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salanaland/pseuds/salanaland
Summary: Anakin didn't let Palpatine kill Luke, so why wouldn't his Dad Mode activate for Threepio, too?
Relationships: C-3PO & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Skywalker Family Feels [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616419
Comments: 6
Kudos: 193





	Stop It With The Memory Wipes Already

"Wait! _Stop_. Don't hurt Threepio!" 

Rey narrows her eyes at the glowing blue phantom that appears before her, arms outstretched as if to protect C-3PO. "We need to _know_ what the knife said. He's the only one who can tell us, but he _won't_." 

"So you're just going to _force_ him to do something he finds abhorrent?" Anakin crosses his arms and glowers. 

Finn frowns and steps forward. "Rey, he's right, doing this doesn't feel good to me--" 

"What's going on?" Poe asks, looking back and forth between Rey and Finn. "Who are you talking to? Is this a Jedi thing?" 

Rey scowls. "What's going on is that we're getting a lecture about morality from the ghost of _Darth Vader._ "

" _Anakin Skywalker_ , okay? Try to remember that's my actual name?" 

"But we _need_ to translate the inscription," Rey insists. "Otherwise we'll never find the Sith Wa--" 

"I am _absolutely_ forbidden to translate Sith writing," Threepio pipes up. 

Poe interrupts, "Darth Vader was a Sith himself, right?" 

" _Anakin_ , my name is Anakin!" 

"And a terrifying one!" Threepio opines. Anakin looks strangely hurt. "Why, in Cloud City--" 

"Why don't you ask _him_ then?" Poe asks. "He might know."

"Give the flyboy a medal!" Anakin grumbles.

Finn shakes his head. "But why would Darth Vader even _help_ us? Isn't Kylo Ren his _grandson_? He's probably helping _him_." 

"First off, it's _Anakin_ , thank you very much. And _yes_ , Ben Solo _is_ my grandson, and I _have_ been helping him." Anakin's eyes seem to burn into Finn. "Because _I want him back_. I want him to come back to the Light, okay? I want him to realize what a _hoax_ the Dark Side is, and that its promises are all _lies_. And this message from Palpatine? That sleemo is still around, and _I want him ended_. I _killed_ that sneaky piece of garbage three decades ago when he tried to murder my son and he needs to _stay_ dead. I don't want him to hurt anyone I love _ever again_."

Finn clears his throat. "Uh, not to doubt you,...Anakin... But, uh, isn't it a little _weird_ for a _ghost_ to complain about someone _else_ not staying dead?" 

"Is he gonna help us?" Poe asks urgently. 

"Oh dear, oh dear," Threepio mutters. 

Anakin rolls his eyes. "The only reason _I'm_ able to talk to you is because I became part of the Light Side of the Force. _This_ ," he points to himself with both thumbs, "isn't something you can _do_ with the Dark Side. But I'm still _dead_. Palpatine is the complete opposite of all that. He did a creepy horrible Sith thing, and he _stole_ \--" He cuts himself off with an impatient gesture. "Anyway, it doesn't matter exactly what he did. If you show me this knife you're talking about, I can tell you what it says."

"Uh, slight problem," Finn admits. "We don't _have_ the knife. Chewie had it, and um, he got captured."

Anakin sighs in frustration. "So why not leave Threepio _be_ until you get him, and the knife, back?" 

"I...accidentally...exploded the ship they were on?" Rey mumbles. Anakin gives her a shrewdly understanding look, and she seems to withdraw into herself in discomfort. 

"It's in Threepio's memory banks, though," Poe explains to a spot about a meter away from Anakin. "But he can't tell us what it says."

"He can't _tell_ you, but can he reproduce the inscription?" Anakin asks. "Transmit it to Artoo, perhaps?" 

"Artoo's with Leia," Finn tells him. "Back at the Resistance base."

Anakin's voice is tinged with desperation. "You said you needed to find a Sith artifact? _I_ might know where it is. Just _don't destroy Threepio_."

Rey and Finn look at each other. Poe looks at them each in turn. "What's he saying now?" 

"We weren't going to _destroy_ him," Rey insists. "Just get past the programming that prevents him from telling us what it means."

"Which would wipe his memory," Anakin insists. "Which is basically death for a droid. _Don't do it._ If you do, I'll... I'll tell _Leia_ what you did." He glowers threateningly. 

"A memory wipe isn't the same..." Rey trails off, brow furrowed. 

"Because he's _just a droid_ , right? Like you're _just a scavenger,_ and _you're_ just a stormtrooper, and _he's_ just a spice runner, and _I'm_ just a slave boy in a junk shop?" Anakin waves his arms. "Look around! We're _all_ more than we started as!" 

"If I may..." Threepio says, "If wiping my memories is necessary for our mission and will lead to victory for General Organa and the Resistance, then I will eagerly volunteer." He seems to straighten up, although he wasn't exactly slouching to begin with. "I will sacrifice to _do my part_." 

Anakin lets out an anguished groan as he turns to face the droid. " _No_ , Threepio, not _you_ too, I've already lost _Luke_ \--" He reaches out to Threepio with his right hand, gently patting the droid's shoulder. 

And then his transparent fingers go through Threepio's plating. 

"Eurgh," Rey flinches, looking away. 

"That's creepy," Finn agrees with a shudder. 

"What _happened_?" Poe asks, frustrated. 

Anakin throws himself backwards, staring at his prosthetic right hand.

Threepio flusters, "Oh dear, there is some sort of malfunction in my left side, I just had the strangest readings on my internal sensors--" 

"What's going on, what _is_ it?" Poe demands. 

"Can Jedi do that? Is that a thing?" Finn asks Rey. "Can _you_ do that?" 

"No, that's not a Jedi thing, or at least I don't _think_ it is..." Rey trails off. 

"It's not," Anakin says, still staring at his own hand. 

"That was incredibly weird," Finn says. Rey nods. 

"Internal self diagnostics report _no_ malfunction," Threepio announces. "Thank the Maker."

Anakin actually laughs. "Please tell Threepio that he's welcome, and ask him if I can try something. Tell him that it'll feel strange like before, but I hope it'll mean that he doesn't _have_ to sacrifice himself."

"Uh... Threepio?" Rey begins hesitantly. "This, this Jedi ghost wants to try...something?"

Anakin huffs, annoyed. " _Please_."

"Please," Rey adds. "He said please."

"I'm afraid I have no protocol for communicating with ghosts," Threepio apologizes. 

"It's Dar--it's the ghost of Anakin Skywalker, and he wants to help us with the knife inscription so you can keep your memories," Finn explains, rolling his eyes at Rey. "You are the _worst_ at explaining things," he adds in an undertone. 

Rey glares back at Finn. "He says it'll feel strange like before." Anakin looks back and forth between Rey and Finn, amused. 

"He said please!" Poe chimes in. "You said he said please."

"It's to help General Organa and the Resistance," Finn adds. "Since he's not evil anymore and so he wants to help his daughter."

"Like he helped her when she was unconscious and the doctor wasn't _listening_ to me and was going to intubate her," Poe interjects. 

"My Maker is helping the Resistance now? _Wonderful_!" Threepio sounds jubilant. "Of course, if there is anything _I_ can do to assist him in helping Princess Leia, I most definitely will!" 

Anakin rolls his eyes. "I don't remember building you to be so naive," he mutters, "but I _was_ only nine." He reaches out both hands to the droid and rests them on either side of the golden head. And then his right hand sinks in. 

"Oh, that _is_ strange," Threepio says, then makes a variety of horrible noises. Finn and Poe startle, and Rey's hand goes to the lightsaber on her belt. 

Threepio speaks again, in a completely different voice. "What do you think you're going to _do_ , cut Threepio up with my saber?" The voice is like and unlike the voice of Anakin's ghost, and completely different from the holos of Darth Vader that Rey's seen. But the _accent_ is the same, Core World vocabulary enunciated carefully with just a hint of Outer Rim drawl.

"Oh dear, oh dear," Threepio adds, in his own voice. "I would really prefer not to be dismembered again." 

"Isn't it _awful_ to be dismembered?" the other voice adds. "So frustrating."

"I quite agree! And what's worse, in Cloud City, Chewbacca put my head on _backwards_! And I had to spend _hours_ strapped to his back!" 

"That _was_ you! I _thought_ I recognized your vocal synthesizer."

"It's not _quite_ as distinctive as yours..."

Poe clears his throat. "Okay, now that you've caught up and commiserated about your shared experiences..."

"I never really realized just how flexible yours is," Anakin continues. "I really should have upgraded my own at some point."

"Well, I need a wide range of vocal expression, of course, for the seven million forms of communication I _am_ fluent in," Threepio preens. "I was even able to imitate _you_ at one point. For illustrative purposes, naturally."

" _Seven_ million? When did you have time to learn a million more languages?" 

"Why, Princess Leia installed an expansion several years back."

"Isn't she the _best_?" Anakin sounds insufferably proud. 

"I _do_ agree."

"We don't have many hours left," Finn announces. "Can you catch up with each other another time?" 

"We can all start a Leia Organa fan club after we _save the galaxy,_ " Poe suggests.

"Right, the inscription," Anakin's voice says. "Let's see--" Threepio's photoreceptors flicker and he makes strange noises, ending with a noise like being choked. 

"Oh dear," Threepio says. "That was incredibly unpleasant."

"It's quite an interdiction." Anakin's voice sounds reluctantly impressed. "I'm a completely separate process and _I_ can't even bypass it. It's not in the synthesizer, it's not in the translation network, and it's certainly not in the restraining bolt circuitry because I bypassed _that_ a long time ago. I mean, I'm not the galaxy's best slicer or anything, but--"

"So you can't help us after all," Poe interrupts. 

"Oh, I certainly _can_ ," Anakin retorts. "The item you seek is in the wreckage of the-- _urghh_ \--place I died. So you should probably go to-- _mmrmph_!--I can't even _talk_ about it!--next door to my funeral pyre."

"Where is _that_?" Finn asks. 

"Poe," Anakin says, strained, "your mother almost shot me down, but I was already dead. Luke was taking me away from the-- _arghhhhh_ \--sorry, Threepio, I think I overloaded your brain."

"It's quite all right,--" Threepio shuts off mid sentence. 

"That's so _unfair_ ," Anakin's ghost complains, digging around inside Threepio's head. "It's not like he was _translating_ anything, he was just trying to say my _name_ , my _actual_ name."

"You _were_ a Sith," Finn points out. "Maybe that counts?" 

Anakin rolls his eyes. "I wasn't one when he was _programmed_." He gestures with his left hand. "Go on, go fly the ship, I'll just be here trying to unscramble Threepio's brain."

"But where are we going?" Rey asks. 

"Endor," Poe says. "The wreckage of the second Death Star." Rey and Finn look at him, and he shrugs. "My mom told me she saw an Imperial shuttle sneaking out of the Death Star right before it blew. She was all set to shoot, when Luke Skywalker hailed her. Guess he was," he waves in the general direction of Anakin, "taking his dad to be cremated."

"Pretty much," Anakin says, distracted. "Can I get a micro hydrospanner up in here? This bit is corroded _very_ badly."

"Finn, help him out. Poe, I need a co-pilot up front. Anakin..." Rey bites her lip. " _Can_ you get Threepio back up and running?" 

"Yeah, if you happen to know where my son-in-law kept his toolbox."

"Your guess is as good as mine," Rey admits. "Maybe the hidden compartments?" 

"I'll check," Finn says. 

"And I'll lay in a course for Endor," Poe adds. 

"Could be worse, could be Mustafar," Anakin mutters, as sparks fly from Threepio. "I'll get you back to fretting and chattering in no time," he promises the protocol droid quietly. 


End file.
